Secret Journey
by Hermonthis
Summary: Spike/Julia - A progression of drabbles from when they first met to the Real Folk Blues: Part Two. 50 themes and 50 sentences. Spoilers for the whole series.


A/N: Done for LJ's _1sentence_ community.  
Warnings for sex, swearing and violence - spoilers for the entire series and one manga chapter.  
Extra song credits for_ Walking _- The Beatles "Nowhere Man" and _Serenade_ - Sting's "When We Dance." This format puts the themes in chronological order.

* * *

**SECRET JOURNEY**

_ Creation and the Universe  
_

**Blessing**  
Vicious asked his best friend what he thought of his new girl, Julia (such a sweet name for a sweet thing), and was glad to hear that he approved. 

**Nuance**  
He didn't know much about her life at first, and he stuck by the old rule that the quiet ones were the ones to watch out for, but one thing he did know was that she brightened up Vicious's life - and wanted to know if it was the same thing with her.

**Burning**  
"Oh, Spike - no, wait!" Julia warned him; too late, he withdrew his hand quickly and started blowing on his injured hand, she chuckled and reprimanded him, "that pot was still hot." 

**Wishes  
**"Happy birthday!" he yelled out in a bar full of smokers and drinkers, but she didn't mind the humiliation so much when he strode up and presented her with a single-stemmed red rose.

**Wonder**  
She asked why he kept staring at her for so long, (was there something on her face?) but he said that he wanted to know how the stars managed to fall from the sky and find their way into her eyes. 

**Jester**  
When they were just starting to know each other, he joked around so much that she didn't know whether if he telling the truth or not when he said that he was really falling in love with her.

**Question**  
Pointing a finger directly to his chest she smiled sweetly at him, "You - Mr. Spiegel - are a bad influence on a woman," and then proceeded to kiss him on the cheek. 

**Quirks**  
"I hate pets," he committed to himself as he watched Julia cuddle and squeal over the new puppy, she had been missing Vicious (he would be gone for several weeks), but the super-sexy Spike jealous of a fuzzy animal? Never.

**Natural**  
Her hair was like liquid sunshine, her lips were tinged with a rose hue, her eyes were of a soft, playful sea; everything about her was sublime and unspoiled, and maybe that's why he wanted her so much with his fake eye and crazy green hair; her ocean to meet his shore. 

**Breathing**  
Suddenly, in the darkness of her apartment, their lips and bodies collided; Spike found an opening in her leather outfit and unzipped it slowly - and with every inch undone she exhaled _just_ a little more - and he discovered that all the air in his lungs had disappeared.

**Quiet**  
"This is no ordinary love," he whispered into her ear, one hand around her waist and the other at the back of her neck, holding her close and loving the way she looked so trustingly into his eyes, "but I don't know why." 

**Waltz**  
Making love to him was torturously slow and heavy, a stark contrast to his light-hearted and carefree persona that he radiated outside the bedroom, but then again she wasn't in a position to make judgements as he threaded his fingers through her hair, her name on his lips, and then she lost all thought when his head disappeared between her thighs.

**Nowhere**  
It happened all so fast: the smiles he sent and her butterfly kisses, their deep companionship for only three months; then his advances and something more: the rose, the pouring rain, her apartment, his bed; in hindsight she should have seen it a mile away, was it wrong to care for two men at the same time? 

**Jump**  
"Julia, chickens do not _jump_ when you put them into the cooking pot," he rubbed his hands over his face, at a loss for her newfound vegetarianism.

**Smirk**  
One time when Vicious was absent and before a 'mission' together, he asked gravely if she had ever killed anyone before and to his surprise she said she did; the dead, blank look in her eyes, the live gun in her hand, her seriousness gave him chills and Spike thought he could see his best friend's silhouette standing right behind her, laughing. 

**Waste/Wasteland**  
"Do you think he'll come back?" she asked him and he reassured her, "Vicious? Yeah, he'll come back for you."

**Balloon**  
They went to the fair together: he showed off his mad skills as a sharp shooter and won her a teddy bear (for the pretty woman, he grinned) along with a red balloon; she laughed and hugged him, and then her fingers slipped and released the string (up, up, into the air) when he snuck in a kiss (thank you for coming with me).

* * *

_ Becoming Undone  
_

**Sordid**  
"Remember, Julia is with Vicious," were words that he didn't want to hear, the guilt and the want grinding into his conscience harder than any punch in the ribs, especially when the words came from Anastasia's mouth. 

**Whiskey and rum**  
He liked the drink far too much for his own good, exchanging one addiction for another that would probably kill him too.

**Worry**  
"Where have you been?" her usually soothing voice, now harsh and heavy like a knife, startled him from his drunken stupor as he crawled to her apartment at four in the morning, but then her voice toned out completely and Spike passed out on her couch. 

**Whimsy**  
The next morning he apologized for his indiscretion and thanked her endlessly for her hospitality; she shrugged noncommittally and told him that next time he did something that stupid, he'd better kiss her goodnight or else.

**Jousting**  
Spike Spiegel was no knight in shining armour and she was no damsel in distress either, stories like that didn't exist when you lived, breathed and existed for the Red Dragon Syndicate. 

**Breaking**  
"I'm sorry Vicious," he confessed to the gun in his hand and looked around his apartment, piles of clothes and empty bottles on the floor, he ran a trembling hand through his dishevelled green hair and wept openly, "I'm so goddamned _sorry_ I stole your girl."

**Weddings**  
Many times in the past he winked at her and said with a grin, "Will you marry me?" and then she'd laugh at his antics and smile back, but now when he said it a little more of herself would die inside - she wished he'd stop - but she continued smiling, it was much easier to play pretend than to ask for reality. 

**Bias**  
"You've always liked me," he craned his neck sideways to catch a glimpse of her looking the other way, purposely avoiding his eyes, "you've always liked the ones that made you laugh."

**Quarrel**  
With Spike, she felt that she could tell him anything; with Vicious, she knew he couldn't. 

**Belief**  
Their destinies were all intertwined, their faces and lives imprinted on paper like a signed contract in blood: the empress, the hanged man, the devil; they could never win, not when the hand that turned their cards purposefully uprooted the tarot deck upside-down and inside-out.

**Serenade**  
_He won't love you, like I love you_... Julia? - yes? - stay with me? - (pause) you know I can't - you can but you won't - but I can still love you - would you? - you know I do - you know _I do_ -_ I do - we do... when we dance, angels will run and hide their wings._

**Sojourn**  
Point A and Point B, a line drawn between two destinations can be made but it can also be easily separated, don't you know that triangles are the strongest to break?

**Bane**  
"Did he ask you?" Vicious asked her coldly, his hand dropped from her proud and radiant face, she found his caress just as lacking, "And what did you say?" 

**War**  
"She stays... but you, Spike... you betrayed me," was the last thing Vicious said to him, the last thing that he remembered before the blackness engulfed him and a moment's silence expanded into three long years of exile.

**Just**  
"Why didn't you stop him?" Annie asked in confidence when Julia confessed that yes, Spike was missing - presumably dead - and Mao Yenrai had left the room in despair; Julia turned towards the elder woman, tears forming in the corner of her eyes and replied, "I didn't want to kill him."

* * *

_The Exile_

**Balcony**  
The Bebop needed repairs and the refrigerator needed restocking, so Spike walked out on the ship's deck, shirtless with a toothbrush in hand and watched the reflection of the rising sun in the waters below him, remembering another time when he used to do this ritual with someone else. 

**Solitary**  
"It's not good to sulk," Jet commented and all he got was a box of chocolates thrown at him, and he ducked behind the door for cover, "okay, so the guy needs some time alone on Valentine's."

**Sorrow**  
Simple things, like a young boy selling flowers in the street or a weather forecast announcing weekend showers, made her feel sad. 

**Birthday**  
"Hey Spike, time to wake up" (good morning Spike, she mumbled into his ear), Jet hollered from the main bridge, "just because you're a year older doesn't give you added naptime," (a kiss on the cheek) when Faye came along and hit him with his own pillow in order to get up (I feel like sleeping in today, how about you?), Ed started babbling cake nonsense and the birthday boy mumbled something along the lines of heyfayewhydon'tyoutellusyouragethen? (let's go back to bed) - before the crazy woman lost her temper and Jet had to break up the fight, all before breakfast (and happy birthday, lover).

**Virtuous**  
Faye had always doubted the infamous woman of Spike's past, she with all her innocent womanly charms, but when Gren spoke of her with such reverence, she started to think otherwise. 

**Neutral**  
He watched calmly as the yellow-clad form retreated into her room and he mumbled to no one in particular, "maybe... if only we had met earlier, there might have been a chance."

**Stupidity**  
"Is it stupid to still love a woman, even if she left you?" Jet asked found it highly enlightening when the younger man plucked the cigarette from his mouth, leaned forward on the couch and solemnly answered, "Never." 

**Sarcasm**  
Annie visibly frowned when Julia told her that she felt nothing for the bounty hunter with the green hair, it was all in the past.

**Quitting**  
At first she regretted not leaving with Spike: she felt what Vicious was going through, saw what he was turning _into_, witnessed the fall of the Syndicate and her former lifestyle, and through it all she felt compelled to stay; someone needed her more, but now… 

**Horizon**  
_I've got to quit you_ - his thoughts repeated over and over whenever the name "Julia" touched his lips - _but then I'd be just like the fool asking for the sky._

**Walking**  
(_He's a real nowhere man_) When Alison, the pretty young woman travelling the world with her guitar, started singing to the wind as they made their getaway in the car (_sitting in his nowhere land_) his mind recalled up images of someone else (_making all his nowhere plans_) with long, blonde hair and a smile that beckoned him from his dreams (_for nobody_) telling him that it was time to come home - to please come home. 

**Share**  
One thing that she didn't want to tell Spike was her little joyride with the Miss-Faye Valentine, how they ran into each other, almost became partners, and the brief moment they spent talking about him.

**Valiant**  
Faye wished that she had asked, _desperately_ wished that she had asked Julia, "Gren... was he anything like Spike?"

* * *

_The End of All Things_

**Near**  
Even if his star wandered the universe, she was the paradise that he wanted to return to. 

**Defeat**  
Vicious asked her what she would do - _Would you, would you betray me too?_ - and even though she told him she wouldn't, that she would kill Spike for him - a gun, his gun pressed against her head, something inside her sparked and started to burn, and she knew that both her boys were going to lose - and her soul started to cry.

**Victory**  
"Good... you found her... you found Julia," were Annie's last words; and in that failing breath and body, Julia silently thanked her for being such a dear friend to them both. 

**Jewel**  
One woman for the world, one woman for all lifetimes - and here she was, dying in his arms - _oh gods, I'm so sorry_ - one tragedy to meld in with all the others.

**Soliloquy**  
It was all over, everything: the battle for supremacy, the battle for friendship, the war against love (or was it for love?) - and at long last, Spike finally closed his eyes and slept in peace. 


End file.
